


Downpour

by justsleepwalkin



Series: Family Ties [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a door with a sign that says 'Do Not Enter', but it's not locked. Do you go in or not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downpour

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place a very long time past season 4, presumably with other means of resurrections happening along the way. If I ever actually continue this series it'll end up Doctor/Master, but at the moment there's only two parts, so. Who knows. Based off of the prompt: [There's a door with a sign that says 'Do Not Enter', but it's not locked. Do you go in or not?](http://community.livejournal.com/justprompts/8336.html)

It’s raining. Not just a little drizzle or a misting, but a full-force downpour, gathering up near sidewalks and making the asphalt look like a river against the night’s air. The Master hangs his head, breathing evenly as the water rolls down his face, droplet after droplet falling away from him.

It’s fitting, he thinks. He must look like a drowned rat, but he will continue to wait.

They aren’t on Earth; they have specifically avoided Earth for quite some time now after Martha Jones passed on. That’s what the Doctor got for trying to keep in touch with the companions he lets leave him. Still, the Master approves steering clear of the planet; it does neither of them any good when they’re there.

The planet they are on now is Sedintii, a modernized world known for these particular rain showers. They come out of nowhere and last a good, long while.

It wasn’t raining when he ‘let’ the Doctor go into the building on his own. They were near a more ‘quiet’ side of the planet; less massive structures around, less city life. He thinks he may prefer the bustle, right about now. It would make a suitable distraction from the edge that is beginning to rifle beneath his skin and scratch into his mind.

It’s been eighteen minutes since the Doctor went in, mentioning with his usual cheery disposition that it would be a quick in-and-out job, nothing big. But the Doctor _attracted_ trouble; they both knew that! How did he agree to this, again? Irritation growing, he taps at his side for a good three minutes, and then he catches himself and curls the fingers together. Now, now, none of that.

An explosion racks the building, and then waiting goes out the window. The Master takes off towards the entrance, wondering just what was so _simple_ and _quick_ about this; wondering what the _hell_ the idiot got himself caught up in, this time.

Because he always, always gets himself caught up in things – especially ones that shouldn’t concern him.

The building’s innards are silvery, everywhere. Lights line the ceiling, reflecting off the walls and making it hard for him to focus. He gazes around the different branches of corridors, testing his instincts; the explosion was somewhere to the far-left of the building – that’s where he likely needs to head. With any luck, he would meet the Doctor halfway and this foolishness could be put behind them.

 

_“What on Sedintii makes you so dead-set on going?”_

_“It’s… complicated – well,_ no _, that’s not really the right word… Just. I have to pick up something.”_

_“Want to be any more vague, Doctor?”_

 

At the end of a long corridor is a single door, a Do-Not-Enter sign bolted to its surface. The Master scowls and he knows he’s on the right trail – as if the Doctor ever could resist places he wasn’t _supposed to go_. With a hand already tucked in his suit, ready to pull out his screwdriver if he required it, he tests the handle and is pleased to find the door unlocked.

Onward, then.

He would have hoped the halls would settle for a sense of normalcy, but it only creeps towards the strange end of the scale. He’s reminded of laboratories and hospitals – the kinds of places he avoids going at all costs. The air takes on a sterile smell as he continues down the hall, deciding to lean towards the careful method of movement, stead of rushing it. Something about the place has his nerves flaring. Why would the Doctor have something to pick up _here_? Why would he want to come?

It wasn’t just the Master that stayed clear of these sorts of places, after all.

A _click-click-click-whirr_ sound causes him to still. His eyes search the hall, but there’s nothing to make any sort of noises. As he hears it again, he chooses to rest against one of the walls, and the noise becomes louder. Secret rooms, then? No surprise, there. He had found it odd that there had been a lack of doors, aside from the Do-Not-Enter one.

Another explosion racks the building; he feels the vibrations, and something else that he can’t put a finger on. He leans away from the wall, with the intention of moving on, until a section of it slides up from floor to ceiling and the _click-click-click-whirr_ makes an appearance in the form of a small robotic creature. Eight legged, spidery, and a metallic cannon situated as its body. Blue lights search around and rest on the Master, then immediately change to a bright red.

“Well,” is all the Master says. He takes a step to the side and watches as the lights follow. “Aren’t you just the special one.” Screwdriver now in hand, he thumbs for the proper setting just as the clicking becomes faster and he can hear a hum from the weapon charging. He fires at it, before it can him.

Perhaps he’ll have to go with a rushed operation after all if there were more of those things lurking behind the walls…

Dammit, Doctor.

 

_“Let me get this straight. You want to go in… alone?”_

_“Yep! No reason having us both worry about fickle little details. I’m sure it’ll be boring, anyway. Just wait out here and I’ll be back. It’s a quick, in-and-out job. No worries.”_

_“You seem so sure of yourself.”_

_“’course I’m sure!”_

 

He’s so near to the third explosion that he can taste a unique chemical wafting towards him from a separate corridor. It makes him choke and lose the rest of his senses for a moment, and disoriented, he stumbles into a wall. This wasn’t good at all. Whatever was causing the explosions was something that could likely cause damage to the planet’s population as a whole…

A fit of coughs later and his body situates itself around the bitter tingle left in the air. He’s about ready to resort to worry when the Doctor rounds a corner ahead of him, a girl in his arms. They lock eyes for a moment , and the Master can make out traces of the other’s notorious ‘Oncoming Storm’ persona on their edges.

“Master,” the Doctor gasps, voice laced with surprise and relief.

“Seems like you’ve decided to go and have all the fun without me!” the Master berates him. He glances at the girl, held tightly in the other’s grasp. Unconscious, by the looks of it. Probably someone injured that he decided to grab and save. Bloody hero. “I think it be best we get going, now. Before another one of those –” He’s not even allowed to finish his sentence before another strike lashes against the building. His new tolerance to the chemical keeps his senses intact, this time, but he wasn’t saved from the coughing.

The Doctor wasn’t doing much better. He was taking heaving breaths and shaking, trying to keep himself stable while dealing with the girl. Leaving her probably wasn’t an option. “Give her to me,” he rasps at the Doctor, making a gesture with his hand. “We’ll never get back out at this rate.”

After a brief hesitation from the other, the Master has himself an armful of blonde.

They run. A nonstop motion until they’re outside again, met by the cold downpour and splashing through puddles along the sidewalk. He regrets that he didn’t move the TARDIS to this location. Finicky ship. “I don’t suppose you have an umbrella in your pockets?” Not that he wasn’t soaked before. He unconsciously pulls the girl closer in an attempt to shield her from the harsh rain.

A double-heartbeat greets him.

The Master turns a wild, wide gaze up at the Doctor. “What the _hell_?” he snaps, without any elaboration.

The Doctor glances over once, quickly, and then away again. They trod on in search of an alternate shelter, with the TARDIS being much too far in this weather. He remains silent the entire way, with the Master growing more and more irate behind him. At last, they come upon a small outpost, a mid-point between the city and any of the outer villages. Thankfully it has a few rooms; not even motel quality, but it would do until the rain passes.

He sets the girl on a bed and then points furiously at her. “What the hell is she?!” he demands.

“Time Lord,” the Doctor whispers, removing his jacket and attempting to ring it out.

“No she’s not! I would be sensing her if she was!”

“She’s… a bit different.”

“Oh _really_? Well, that just explains everything now, doesn’t it –”

“She’s my daughter,” the Doctor chokes out. Those three words silence the Master completely. “I didn’t know she was alive until this morning.” The look the Master is giving tells him that he has to elaborate a bit more than that. With a sigh, the Doctor settles into a chair. He explains about the planet Messaline and its war and the soldiers it created. About the girl, Jenny, and how she was too much like him and he thought she was killed, and about a message that he received on the psychic paper that morning. He didn’t encounter the person who sent the initial plea – it had been a few simple words ‘a girl named Jenny needs you’ – but he did find his daughter.

That was about the time when the walls opened up and several of the robotic creatures came out and began to fire at him.

“ _Those_ small things made the explosions?”

“Yeah.”

“And you thought never mentioning this whole rescue-scheme to me was a good idea, why, exactly?”

The Doctor only shrugs. It isn’t a good enough answer, and they both know it. But the Master chooses to not call him out on it, for once. He’ll save that conversation for when they’re not sodden, tired, and ridden with chemicals. He glances over at the girl, wondering if she was in a restorative coma – if she was even capable of such – or just out cold.

“I told her once that she could travel with me,” the Doctor whispers. He lets the statement hang between them.

There are plenty of retorts the Master could make. He listens to the rain pelting down on the planet outside and tries to picture what the Doctor would be like as a young female girl. He figures she’s different enough that she isn’t _really_ the Doctor squared (he’s been able to live with one Doctor after all these years; two may be pushing it).

He decides it probably wouldn’t be so bad, and he tells the Doctor just that.


End file.
